


The End of the World

by MrProphet



Category: Midsomer Murders - All Media Types, The 13th Floor
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The End of the World

Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby pressed his foot to the accelerator while Sergeant Dan Scott listened to his radio.

  
“The suspect went past before they got the roadblock up,” Scott reported. “Peters and Broughton are going after him.”

“No!” Barnaby snapped. “Call them back.”

“But, sir! He’ll be halfway to London!”

“No he won’t; call them back. Tell them to maintain the roadblock.” He relaxed the pressure on the pedal. “There’s no hurry now.”

“Sir!” Scott protested.

“Haven’t you ever wondered about Midsomer?” Barnaby asked. “The outlandish characters; the tangled motivations; the sheer volume of murders?”

“Well, it does seem a little bit… statistically unlikely, now you come to mention it.”

As they drove along the road in the gathering dusk, Barnaby went on: “Genetic predestination. If you could know from the moment of birth that a child would grow up to be a killer, what would you do?”

“Teach them not to be,” Scott suggested.

“Some that might work, but what if the potential was irremovable; a deep-seated atavism that was bound to come out in one way or another, be it in an argument over a traffic accident or a long-running feud over the provenance of a poem found in the seat-cover of an antique chair?”

“Well…”

“Could you punish a child for something they hadn’t done?”

“Of course not,” Scott said. “But it’s ridiculous, you couldn’t know…”

“Of course we know,” Barnaby replied. “We’ve had that technology since 2056.”

“Since…”

The car rounded a final bend. The suspect’s vehicle was parked less than a hundred yards ahead. The suspect himself was standing by the car, staring aghast at the road, which transformed into a green-on-black wireframe outline, and then faded into nothing about a mile away.

“What…?” Scott managed.

“This is where the world runs out,” Barnaby replied. “The world of Midsomer which we built to house the criminally eccentric.”

“It can’t be,” Scott groaned. “It just can’t be…”

Barnaby took a small pistol from his pocket and fired a beam of green light at the suspect. The beam struck the man between the shoulder blades and he dissolved into shards of glittering light. A second shot accounted for his car.

“What…?”

Barnaby patted the sergeant’s shoulder and spoke into the air. “Barnaby to control,” he said. “Suspect witnessed the divide and has been eliminated. Please arrange cover.”

“Acknowledged, Tom,” came the reply. “Car accident?”

“Oh, I think that should do the trick,” Barnaby agreed.

“You… killed him,” Scott gasped.

“What? No, no, no,” Barnaby assured him. “A temporary removal from the system; the actual individual remains in his booth at Midsomer Control and will be reintegrated soon enough as a new arrival. No-one will recognise him, of course…” He got back into the car. Almost on instinct, Scott did the same and Barnaby began to drive away, leaving the terrible vanishing road far behind them.

“How can I not know?” Scott asked.

“Because you’re programmed not to,” Barnaby replied. “Control; Sergeant Scott has also witnessed the divide. Please reformat.”

“Acknowledged.”

“What do you mean, reform…” Scott’s form shifted and blurred and resolved; his face altered, his hair less neat, his suit less expensive.

“You’d better call the accident in, Jones,” Barnaby suggested.

“Of course, sir,” Sergeant Ben Jones agreed, and he reached for the radio.


End file.
